Swift-paced, sexy 'Himself and Nora' looks at lusty literary lovers

PAM KRAGEN - Staff Writer

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James Joyce may be acknowledged as the 20th century's leading
literary innovator, but the Irish author's fragmented,
stream-of-consciousness novels are no easy read. Thankfully, that's
not the case in "Himself and Nora," a tuneful new musical at the
Old Globe Theatre that tells Joyce's life story in a fresh,
contemporary and surprisingly funny way.

Written by Sheila Walsh (book, lyrics) and Jonathan Brielle
(music, lyrics, orchestrations), "Himself and Nora" takes a breezy,
mostly upbeat look at the 37-year love affair between the brilliant
Irish author of "Ulysses" and Nora Barnacle, the low-born, sexually
aggressive chambermaid who became Joyce's life mate and muse.

Co-directed by Jeff Calhoun and Joseph Hardy (who helped Walsh
and Brielle shape "Himself and Nora" from a literary play with
music into a musical love story over the past four years), the
musical could as easily be called "Nora and Himself." For it is
Nora, played with pluck and confidence by Kate Shindle, who emerges
as the most interesting character in this time-traveling, two-hour
show.

Nora, this musical makes clear, was the sensuous, earthy,
iron-willed adventurer who forever sparked Joyce's imagination.
"Without your voice," he sings in the musical, "there is no
Joyce."

And it is Nora (his "portable Ireland") who sustained Joyce
during his long, self-imposed exile from his beloved native
country. "Word me," Joyce begs Nora on their infamous first day of
intimacy in the musical, and their erotic, often-tempestuous
odyssey begins.

"Himself and Nora" covers a lot of ground in its two roughly
55-minute acts, beginning in 1882 with Joyce's birth in Dublin ——
actor Matt Bogart emerges nude and fully grown from the womb —— to
Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake"-inspired final hours in 1941 Zurich.

The show's nonstop action (musically staged by Calhoun) and
minimal dialogue allow little time for a dissection of Joyce's
tortured psyche. Instead, it presents James and Nora's life
together as a series of short musical impressions. Brielle's songs
are brief, bright, bawdy and mostly uptempo, and Walsh's tersely
written book discards literary discussion in favor of having the
self-described "compatriots in lust" lob "juicy, wet words"
("thighs," "fire," "vomit," "soul," "dirty potato") back and forth
at each other like so many drunken shuttlecocks.

Joyce's biography is mostly faithful. We see the trauma of his
mother's death; his growing disdain for the Catholic Church ("I
won't kneel … I will write"); his sexual tutelage under Nora; his
long battle with glaucoma (in lieu of money, he pays his eye
surgeon with the first vignette from "The Dubliners"); his
discovery by the poet Ezra Pound; his endless curiosity for minute
detail; his handshake "Ulysses" publishing agreement with Sylvia
Beach; and his perennial struggle against censorship.

Through it all, the self-adoring Joyce suffers for his art, but
never loses faith in his gifts. In the humorous second-act opener
"The Grand Himself," Joyce gleefully preens: "I titillate … I
intoxicate … why punctuate?"

As Joyce, Bogart ages authentically from boy to man, and he
sings with energy, intelligence and passion. His second-act solo
"Always … in Love" is achingly pretty, and he solidly serves up
drinking songs, Irish jigs and harmonious duets. But it is Shindle
who gets the show's two best numbers —— the first-act
stand-by-your-man ballad "Stand Fast" and the second-act
marry-me-or-else torch song "Lucky" —- and she stops the show with
each one.

With better musical material to establish her character, Nora
becomes the more interesting half of this symbiotic pair. By the
end, we know Joyce's work and the milestones in his life, but he
remains an aloof enigma and his prickly, often-cruel nature is
difficult to embrace in the show's upbeat finale. The lilting
score, infused with Irish reels and French can-cans, is hummable,
but its contemporary sound jangles on occasion with the dreary
period settings.

David Edwards, Frank Mastrone and Kathy Santen round out the
cast in multiple roles, playing Joyce's parents, children, priests,
patrons and publishers. Tobin Ost designed the costumes and the
two-story, tumble-down stone villa set, which includes a turntable
stage on which the action rarely stops. Michael Gilliam's lighting
has a dreamy element, and dialect coach Jan Gist does a laudable
job with the cast's Irish and Italian accents. Jon Weston designed
the sound.

"Himself and Nora" has a brief scene of nudity and numerous
coarse sexual references (all of them authentic to Joyce's books
and letters), but it's suitable for ages 13 and up. Not everyone
can enjoy a James Joyce novel from beginning to end, but it's easy
to spend two hours in the company of "Himself and Nora."